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North Carolina Athletics | March 16, 2014

North Carolina gets third win against top-25 team of week

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina continued its winning ways Sunday afternoon as it defeated 13th-ranked Wake Forest 6-1 in a match played indoors before a crowd of nearly 500 fans.

Carolina has now won four matches in a row, including three against top-25 teams in the past seven days. Coach Sam Paul's Tar Heels improved to 15-2 overall with the win and now stand 2-0 in the ACC. Wake Forest fell to 9-5 with the loss as the Demon Deacons fell to 0-1 in league play.

The top half of Carolina's singles lineup was again a dominant force in the match as Brauden Schnur, Ronnie Schneider and Brett Clark swept at Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Oystein Steiro and Jack Murray also contributed singles wins for UNC.

A key to the match was UNC's improved doubles play as Carolina won handily at all three spots. It was the first doubles point victory for UNC against a top 25-opponent since it claimed the point against Illinois on Feb. 1.

After sweeping the doubles matches and going up 1-0, the Tar Heels clinched the match result with a trio of straight-set wins. The other three matches resulted in split sets and were decided by a 10-point tiebreaker in the third set.

Oystein Steiro was the first off the court as he was dominant in a 6-1, 6-2 win against Sam Bloom at No. 5 singles. The matches on courts Nos. 1 and 3 ended almost simultaneously as No. 18 Brayden Schnur improved to 12-0 in singles this spring with a 6-2, 6-4 win against 20th-ranked Romain Bogaerts. Brett Clark snagged his 26th singles win of the 2013-14 season overall and 10th dual match triumph as the 51st-ranked Clark downed Jon Ho 6-0, 6-4 at No. 3.

With the set splits on the other three courts, Carolina's 32nd-ranked Ronnie Schneider persevered for a win versus 48th-ranked Adam Lee 6-2, 6-7 (3), 1-0 (6). Johan Skattum of UNC fell at No. 6 to Nicky Kunz in 10-8 third-set tiebreaker before Jack Murray won at No. 4 versus Maksim Kan 7-5, 4-6, 1-0 (9). That win lifted Murray to 11-3 in dual matches this spring.

Schneider continues his outstanding play for UNC as he has won eight consecutive singles matches. He is now 25-3 overall on the year and is 13-1 in dual matches.